“Star Trek: Unusual New Worlds” is superb, and the third season has been a factor of pure pleasure. The “Star Trek: The Authentic Collection” prequel present has in some way managed to each discover huge new concepts in “Star Trek” and look again on the present’s previous, introducing youthful variations of beloved characters with some regularity. Since many followers had already seen youthful variations of Kirk, Spock, Uhura, and the remainder of the Enterprise crew within the Kelvin-verse “Star Trek” motion pictures, it grew to become an excellent larger problem, however they’ve managed to knock it out of the park. Ethan Peck as Spock is completely excellent, with echoes of earlier actors Leonard Nimoy and Zachary Quinto whereas nonetheless being a very distinctive efficiency, and Celia Rose Gooding as a younger Nyota Uhura lights up the display screen, drawing from their love of the character from childhood.
The actors who deliver the youthful variations of those traditional characters to life are all doing nice work, however there’s one who has been an unbelievable shock stand-out this season: Martin Quinn as younger engineer Montgomery Scott, higher referred to as Scotty. First showing on the finish of season 2, Quinn manages to steal each scene he is in with out each feeling like he is doing a pastiche of Scotties previous.
Quinn’s Scotty feels totally earnest and it is excellent
One of many issues that makes updating the unique “Star Trek” collection characters so difficult is that they’ve change into cultural touchstones for a lot of, and have been referenced and spoofed to excessive heaven for the reason that collection debuted in 1966. The parents behind “Unusual New Worlds” are clearly conscious of the lengthy historical past of the characters in popular culture and even did a terrific meta-commentary episode the place the present’s Kirk, Paul Wesley, acquired to channel his interior William Shatner and actually go for the Canadian actor’s trademark stilted dialogue, mimicking the unique Captain James T. Kirk. With Scotty, nonetheless, Quinn is taking part in issues slightly softer, with a youthful model of the character made well-known by James Doohan that does not drink a lot and appears fairly bright-eyed and harmless, a far cry from the extra grizzled and sarcastic man he’ll sooner or later change into.
Whereas the opposite youthful variations of legacy characters have all been given their very own little tweaks as a result of they might be completely different with out the time and expertise of their “Authentic Collection” counterparts, Scotty might be essentially the most completely different, but it surely works brilliantly. Each Quinn and Doohan play exasperation the identical method, and you may see glimpses of how exhausting years in Starfleet will put on down the brilliant younger officer. He is nonetheless simply working underneath the command of Lieutenant Pelia (Carol Kane), the present chief of engineering, however he’ll be answerable for sustaining the ship earlier than he is aware of it, with all the stress that comes with it. However for now he is nonetheless an lovable younger officer attempting to hold with the already skilled crew of the Enterprise, and he is excellent.
Unusual New Worlds lets us fall in love with these characters yet again
For followers of “Star Trek” who’ve been awaiting years (and in lots of circumstances, a long time), the characters of Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Scotty, and the remainder of the unique Enterprise bridge workforce are actually particular. Each single model of “Star Trek” is at the very least considerably a hangout present, as a result of the good a part of happening adventures every week is that we get to go on them with the lovable weirdos that make up every collection. Simply spending time with the crew is a part of the draw, and so they’ve managed to duplicate that feeling properly on “Unusual New Worlds.” Legacy characters and new characters alike get the prospect to shine, and although the unique collection is revered “Unusual New Worlds” does not really feel totally beholden to it and is not attempting to easily repeat the previous — an issue that plagued the Kelvin-verse movies.
Quinn is an ideal addition to the solid, and it is truthfully a blast seeing him work together with the remainder of the crew since he is the brand new man and so they’re all beginning to get set of their methods. Truthfully, I’d watch a complete collection nearly Scotty and Pelia’s misadventures in engineering, as a result of these two are a comedic duo for the ages. Perhaps when she leaves she’ll give him her Starfleet fanny pack?
“Star Trek: Unusual New Worlds” is on the market to stream on Paramount+.
